The Pakistan government has reportedly said they have credible intelligence that suggests India is planning another attack on Pakistan, sometime between April 16 and 20.
Speaking to reporters at Multan, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said, “We have reliable intelligence that India is planning a new attack on Pakistan. As per our information, this could take place between April 16 and 20.”
While he did not specify what the source of information was and what evidence they have to substantiate their claim, Qureshi said that he and the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan had decided to share the information with the country. He further said: “The objective behind this attack in the veil of the Kashmir aggression could be to pressurise Pakistan and justify their investigation. If this happens you can imagine what would be the consequences of this.”
“Keeping the situation in mind, we have invited United Nations ambassadors of P5 Security Council and made them aware about this information. We want the international community to take notice of this irresponsible attitude,” he added.
India’s foreign office did not immediately respond.
Should Pakistan’s claim have any credibility, the timing of the attacks is curious. A strike between April 16 and 20 would have a considerable impact on Phase III of the Lok Sabha polls, which is scheduled to take place on April 23. In this phase, polling will be held in 115 seats spread across 14 states and Union Territories. This would include all the seats in Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Additionally, polling will take place in 14 seats in Karnataka and Maharashtra each, ten seats in Uttar Pradesh, seven seats in Chhattisgarh, six seats in Odisha, five in West Bengal and Bihar, four in Assam and one in Jammu and Kashmir.
It is widely believed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dipping popularity had found new life after the Balakot airstrike. Another attack on Pakistan will most certainly help the fortunes of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has almost exclusively been campaigning on the plank of “national security” and “nationalism”.